After years of consistent blogging about church communication, website best practices, and product updates, we’ve moved our blog to a new home base on ekklesia360.com.
Please check out our newly updated blog: www.ekklesia360.com/resources/
We’d love to continue the conversation with you!
While you’re there, you can “Subscribe to Email Updates” and get email notifications whenever we post a new blog.

And, if there is anything in particular you’d like us to write about, send your ideas to hello@monkdevelopment.com and add “Blog Idea” in the subject line.

We are so thankful for you and your continued readership.

Something Just For Church Communicators

Steve Fogg has a heart for church communicators. This is obvious by just looking at the topics on his blog. Not only are many of his posts written specifically for the church communicator, on Thursday, February 12, he is launching a brand new live Twitter feed that will cover everything a church communicator cares about; ranging from the professional: preparing for Christmas and Easter, to the personal: self-development and self care. Fogg is currently the Communications Pastor at Crossway Baptist in Melbourne, Australia and formerly held jobs as a creative director and graphic designer. 

His new Twitter feed, #CMSChat, is a part of Church Marketing Sucks and will be every Thursday at  9 p.m. Eastern | 8 p.m. Central | 6 p.m. Pacific | 1 p.m. Friday in Australia.

To kick off his new Twitter chat, we asked Steve a couple of questions about it and his life:

MonkDev: I’ve read that you have a “burden” for church communicators. Can you explain that to our audience? How did that lead to the partnership with Church Marketing Sucks and now the live Twitter chat?

Steve Fogg: When I moved roles from a Creative Director in the creative services industry to a church communications role here in Australia, I felt like I was stranded on a deserted island all by myself. Since then, I’ve had to work hard locally and online to connect with the community. I now feel a sense of responsibility and I have a heart to help others. They remind me of myself back when I started as a church communicator and I want to help them find their place among this community. It’s not just about a person’s social placing, I blog because I want to help those who need some peer support with their strategy and tactics.

The Twitter #cmschat is an extension of that open hand for others. People normally have to attend a seminar or conference to connect or learn from others. Here’s an easy opportunity to get to know others and learn. For free. I pitched the idea last year with the team at Church Marketing Sucks and I’m pleased that we can do this.

MD: What are you most excited about related to the chat?

SF: I’m most excited that disconnected folks will find connection amongst their peers. Whether you are connected or not, we will all learn from each other. We are all experts at something and can take insights away from one another to put into practice in our own space.

MD: Can you share a story of how your blog has been able to help church communicators?

SF: It’s been amazing to be honest. People who I’ve never met come and tell me how my blog has helped them in what they do. Just in the last week a person starting out in another city in Australia contacted me and asked me to help him get started, because they found my blog. How cool is that? Others have taken away the tactics and strategy I’ve written about on my blog and implemented them. Afterwards, they contacted me thanking me for helping them do better. I particularly love it when they express it with a sense of surprise because it actually worked!

MD: That’s great! Now, I have an offbeat question for you. You’re from Melbourne, Australia and claim to live in the most liveable city in the world. What does that mean to you? And what’s something everyone must do when they visit your city?

SF: I was born in England and emigrated to Australia in my early twenties. Melbourne is simply a lovely city to live in. Low crime rate, dry hot summers, mild winters, good education, amazing cafes, top wine region and scenery. It is tree lined and still a young city, the coffee culture here is the best I’ve encountered. If someone was to come and visit Melbourne I would say to explore the food culture which is very good and also see more of the state, especially The Great Ocean Road, which is in my opinion some of the most stunning scenic driving you'll ever do.

MD: Okay, one last question. One year from now, what do you hope people take away from your church communications Twitter chat?

SF: I hope they have a sense of community and honing of their specific craft not constrained by geography or budget. No matter what denomination or church size you are from, there will be a nugget of gold for you to take away.

We also love sharing strategies with church communicators that help them do their jobs better. Download this free eBook to learn the 7 Content Games Churches Must Avoid.

Have you ever experienced déjà vu when listening to church announcements? It’s possible you’re mistaken, but isn’t it the third time this month someone from the pulpit has tried to recruit people to serve in children’s ministry? There has to be a better way to get the word out about new volunteer opportunities. Guess what? Now there is.

At MonkDev, we’ve been developing a new Ministry Focused Layout for Volunteer Opportunities that allows people to see all the ways they can serve from one web page. It’s categorized, clean, and easy to implement.

3 Mistakes Churches Make When Recruiting Volunteers  

1) The Process Is Managed By One Person

Perhaps volunteer opportunities exist but, similar to one of the churches we talked to, they are managed by a single person and essentially live in an imaginary database in that person’s head. What if the person leaves or is out sick? That model of capturing volunteers is just not sustainable long term.

2) It’s Totally Disorganized

It could be that your volunteer opportunities have made it to your website but are split up based on the ministry. This creates confusion for visitors coming to your site wanting to get plugged in. It’s time to get all of your opportunities into a centralized, easy to navigate place.

3) There’s A Bottleneck

Communications Coordinator Beverly Lwenya from The District Church in Washington D.C. told us they regularly have 30 to 40 volunteer opportunities. “The willingness to serve is there,” she says. Unfortunately their recruiting process is regularly interrupted. Currently, the only way people can get plugged in to serve at her church is through a connection card. This means someone on the church’s staff has to read the card, type it into a database, send out an email to the new volunteer, and complete several other steps before the volunteer is actually connected to an area of ministry where they can serve.  Recently, The District Church requested our newest Ministry Focused Layout for Volunteers. 

“I’m hoping that the Ministry Focused Layout directed toward volunteers will remove the bottleneck between people wanting to serve and having to fill out the connect form... I think it will allow people to self-serve and pick the opportunity that is right for them.” - Beverly Lwenya

The Solution:

Churches from all denominations agree they want to empower members of their congregations to serve.  Why? Serving gives people the opportunity to move from Sunday-only churchgoers to engaged members of the congregation.

In order for the church to work effectively, it needs people to be in key ministry areas including:

• Children’s Ministry
• Welcome Team
• Tech Team
• Student Ministry
• Young Adults/College
• Arts

If people are serving, they are engaged and they will continue to pour their time and talents into the church.  This ultimately furthers the church’s mission and ensures the church thrives.

The Ministry Focused Layout for Volunteer Opportunities helps you by organizing your volunteers and quickly connecting them to all of the opportunities within the church. It allows you to stop worrying about recruiting and instead think about developing all of the volunteers you have.

Once people new to volunteering have the opportunity to serve, they may just love it. 

“I sat in the pew for many years but once I got my first taste of serving, that was it.”  Beverly shares. 

If you want to give your church members an easy way to plug into volunteer opportunities, contact us about our Ministry Focused Layout for Volunteer Opportunities by filling out the form below. 

Jimmy, where’s the coolest place you have travelled or lived and why?

Penang, Malaysia. I went to boarding school there and grew up there. It was a really unique upbringing and situation.

Do you have a favorite genre of books to read? What’s your all time favorite book?

I don’t really read books. I prefer movies. My favorite genre of movie is drama, character driven stuff like American History X.

What are three random Jimmy facts everyone should know about you?

•     I’m an only child so I kind of believe the world revolves around me.
•     I love cats but am allergic to them.
•     My favorite color is blue.

What skill do you hope to one day master?

Making/writing videos

If you had a free round trip ticket for anywhere in the U.S. where would you go and what would you do?

Somewhere on the East Coast, because I’ve never really been there.

What is the best movie you've seen this year?

Guardians of the Galaxy

If you could give someone one piece of advice what would it be?

Be honest and upfront. Don’t play games.

Ok, so you've been here a couple of months now. Tell me about the atmosphere here at MonkDev HQ. Was it what you expected?

The atmosphere is very friendly, people are helpful and know what they’re doing. I didn’t really know what to expect, so it was nice.

If you had to eat just one thing for every meal of every day for the rest of your life and would receive no health ramifications, what would it be?

My friend's mom's ribs. They’re super salty and super good.

If you could have dinner with with 3 people living or dead who would they be?

Jesus, Me at 45, Me at 18

It’s Saturday and you have no plans or obligations, paint me a picture of your perfect day.

Wake up at around 12 and have a small lunch. Wander around somewhere, a park, or downtown or something. Then BIG dinner, and I'd hang out with friends. Maybe I'd watch a movie, too.

What is one adventure you'd like us to experience before you die?

I think I would want to walk around somewhere just taking pictures. Probably someplace European. I think I’m more in love with the romantic idea of that than what it’ll actually be like.

If you had one day to do ANYTHING you wanted in San Diego, money is no object, what would you do?

Probably stay at a nice hotel. Have a “me day.”

Check out some of the items that Jimmy has designed since starting with Monk. They include our Christmas Card and giveaways, the e360 Theme, Hoornbeek, and our Content Strategy and the Church white paper. Next, Jimmy will be tackling some of our Easter giveaways. 

Want to see if you're using the best strategies at your church? Download this free resource! 

MonkDev sees 2015 as a year of enhanced connectivity. Here are 5 design trends that will change the way people interact with your church’s website.

Storytelling 

Scrolling, single page, and parallax design are trending for a reason. These design elements create an atmosphere that allow visitors to experience rather than merely click through mundane tabs. Instead of trying to make sure every critical piece of content is above the fold, now you can tell a story and be liberated knowing that people are visiting your site ready and willing to scroll.

One of our favorite examples of this storytelling approach is The Village Church’s new site. Visitors are naturally directed down the page by captivating imagery and current content. The new visitor is met with key location information as they scroll down to find resources, events, and stories of changed lives.

Personalization 

In a time when we are met with endless options, it is easy to see how helpful personalization on the web can be. I recently encountered this during a Christmas online shopping session for my nieces and nephews.  The “You May Also Like” feature made it incredibly easy to find gifts relating to what I was already looking for. The information I entered caused even more relevant information to rise up out of the noise. Take a moment to think about the possibilities for your church’s website. Your audience is not looking for that perfect toy, but they are searching. Why not make it easier? Personalization can help create connections to ministry that someone new to your church may not have even knew existed.

Your audience is not looking for that perfect toy, but they are searching. Why not make it easier?

One recent project paving the way in personalization is the Episcopal Diocese of Washington (EDOW). EDOW has over 80 active churches with relevant news, resources and events. Visitors to the EDOW site simply need to self-select from a drop-down list, and enter their zip code to receive relevant information throughout the site. Using cookies, the EDOW site takes these selections and updates the featured news and events items to match the visitor’s criteria.

We dream of families visiting their church’s site and immediately seeing their small group’s study questions for the week, information for their child’s next youth event, or a new blog post from the missionary they support.

Responsive Design

Internet browsing on phones and tablets is ever increasing. To meet this need, MonkDev has been almost exclusively designing responsive sites for several years. Pinching and zooming is for maps. Your church’s website should be accessible on whatever device you are using. We feel this is so critical to a successful site that we removed all non-responsive designs from our e360 Themes. One of our latest designs, Faber, works great on everything from a phone to a 27” monitor.

Interested in seeing how your site looks on mobile devices? Check out the Responsinator.

Just type your website into the box on the upper left hand corner and hit "Go." In a few seconds, you'll see what mobile visitors will see when they come to your site. 

Clear Next Steps

Creating clear next steps is the best way to start getting ministry results through your church’s website. Getting creative with design will allow you to direct the focus and increase awareness of visitors and engaged church members alike.

God has called you to lead and guide the people who come to your church. By setting up clear next steps, you're able to move people into deeper levels of engagement. Without them, people can easily get lost or distracted.

AJ Fenlason | Strategist

Fellowship Little Rock has two quick ways to get to their “Get Connected” page. Once on the page, a welcoming video and brief content gives an introduction to the church, and 4 personalized calls to action lead visitors to deeper engagement. Each “step” in getting connected is incredibly clear and inviting.

Cottonwood Creek’s "Missions" page provides information about missionaries the church supports and opportunities to get plugged in with missions work. While learning “About” missions, site visitors are met with a bold call to “Find Opportunities” at Cottonwood. Clicking that link takes the user to a pre-filtered event list.

Flexibility 

We know how much the communication schedule of a church can vary from one month to the next. The typical church calendar has seasons of key content focus. Having a large area on the homepage dedicated to events can be really frustrating during a season with less on the calendar. Likewise if you are promoting the new church blog, it would be great to have it immediately grab your audience's attention.

A church website’s design needs to consistently represent the life of the church and act as a sort of snapshot. Flexibility is necessary to show what’s current, what to expect and how to get involved.

Eagle’s Landing has a bright and modern home page design that can easily be updated to meet their content needs. Everything from the image rotator down to the newsletter signup is optional. There are seven areas that can be placed on the homepage to quickly bring the focus from an event to the latest message or a call to action.

A church website’s design needs to consistently represent the life of the church and act as a sort of snapshot.

We’ve been working hard to bring this functionality to our latest e360 Themes. Here are some of our favorite examples.

e360 Theme L'Engel

Bay Area First Baptist, Athens First United Methodist Church, and Christ The King Church Bellingham.

e360 Theme Hoornbeek

KCM, Christ Church Southampton, and Gateway City Church.

Let’s make 2015 the year that your church’s website greets new visitors with welcoming information and becomes part of your congregants daily online routine!

Welcome to the team, Will Montgomery! Raised in Wilmington, NC, Will has since made his home in Nashville, TN where he works for Monk Development remotely. Upon meeting Will, you'll immediately notice that he's nice, Southern, and funny. He brings lightheartedness and laughter to a room and isn't afraid of making jokes, even if they are at his own expense. Because Will is also driven, he takes his job as part of our Sales/Biz Dev team seriously and has already found ways to connect with churches and share our values and vision with them. We took some time to sit down with Will to get to know him and here's what we discovered:

Will, who in your life do you admire the most?

Easily my parents, sister, and brother.  They are the four greatest Christians I know, and they happen to be my immediate family. As for non-family, probably Ronald Reagan.

You seem like an animal person. Do you have any pets?

I have a cat named Zeus and a family Great Dane named Millie.

What about missions trips? Have you gone on any? 

I have been on a few, but the two most memorable were to Alaska for a month to work with underprivileged youth at a camp and to Portugal to assist my friends David & Sarah Booth in planting a church there in Lisbon.

What skill do you hope to one day master?

I want to speak Spanish fluently.

If you could give someone one piece of advice what would it be?

Count your blessings daily.

Okay, let's play a game. If you had a free round trip ticket for anywhere in the U.S. where would you go and what would you do?

San Diego to be with my fellow Monks or home in Wilmington, NC to see my family.

If you could take a trip around the world in 80 days what would be your preferred mode of transportation?

Definitely by sea, since I am afraid to fly.

What was your favorite TV show as a kid?

"Family Matters." Who didn’t love Urkel?

What was your weirdest job?  

Hmm, probably my weirdest job was selling beach sarongs to women.  

Worst job?

My worst job was selling gas cards over the phone to truckers.

Most fun job?

My most fun job is my current one. Haha.

Okay, let's talk about that, actually. What excites you the most about working at MonkDev?

I love the people, the teammate mentality we all have, and the true desire to see churches become more effective in reaching their community for Christ.  

So you've been here a couple of weeks now. Tell me about the atmosphere here at MonkDev HQ. Was it what you expected?

I expected things to be pretty cool but nowhere near this fantastic.  When I interviewed, we talked a lot about our core values, as a lot of companies do, but I have never been anywhere where they truly live them out day in and day out.  It is an anomaly in today’s society, and one I am blessed to be a part of now.

Okay, last question. If a movie was made of your life what genre would it be, who would play you?

Definitely a romantic comedy, with Chris Pratt as the lead.

To see what Will is up to, follow him on Twitter and download this free eBook to learn how to create a winning strategy for your church's website. 

We're excited to release our latest e360 church website theme ten Boom! This theme was built from the ground up using ministry process design. As a result, we spent time thinking through how a church can use this theme to attract and engage their communities. We shared about that in the sneak peek of ten Boom. 

Check out the features of the new theme

See ten Boom in Action Download Buyers Guide

The fruit of this work has now come in the form of a transformation of our organization. Many of our leaders are now positioned to coach others as they step into new roles.

Here are just a few of the changes in 2015

• Jesse Craycraft is now the Operations Director
• Jodi Roberts has moved into the Marketing Manager role
• AJ Fenlason has stepped into the Strategic Services Manager role
• Justin Stayton is now the Engineering Manager
• Loren Samuelson has moved into a Client Services Manager role
• Jenn Craycraft is now the Senior Designer
• Shane Bonham is now the Senior Engineer

James Martin, who served as President & COO will be staying on the Board of Directors and act as CFO and coach to Jesse Craycraft. Etienne de Bruin will also transition to a Board of Director role and act as interim CTO to assist with strategic technology decisions and to be a coach to Justin Stayton.

James and Etienne are excited to announce their new venture backed by a longstanding partnership. With the development of our leaders, James is stepping into a new company, MaxHOA, as CEO and Etienne as CTO.  MaxHOA provides homeowners in HOAs with a way to get to know each other, participate in discussions, submit motions and votes, and search CC&Rs. This exciting opportunity will expand our team and leadership opportunities while continuing the mission and focus of MonkDev.

It is truly an honor to serve our customers and their communities. Helping thousands of churches and ministries live out their mission online is a big calling and we have been blessed with the team and technology to do it.  Here’s a picture of our team from our recent celebration of the 2014 at MonkDev and celebrate James and Etienne (and their wives!) as they move to their new venture. Exciting times ahead as we embark on the new year!  

Keep an eye on what the MonkDev team is up to by signing up for the newsletter. As an added bonus you'll get a website starter kit.

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We often talk with churches that have great looking websites, but they’re not seeing movement:

• More visitors to their new here page
• People becoming engaged in small groups
• People stepping up to serve their communities
• Increased online giving

At the same time we’ve helped design websites that lead to ministry breakthroughs. What is it that makes some church websites effective while others miss the mark?

Ministry Process Design

Successful websites have one thing in common, they focus on ministry process and create designs to help connect visitors to their community. Eagle Brook’s small group finder is a great example of ministry process shaping design. It’s one of the designs we share in the Ministry Process Design eBook.

… learn more by filling out the form and download your free copy.

What You'll Find Inside

• How successful churches create ministry movement online
• Creative ways churches combine values, content and design to reach their goals
• Ministry process designs from Fellowship Bible Church, Bayview Glen, Eagle Brook, Green Bay Community Church and more.

Download Your eBook

If you’re considering a redesign in the new year, you need to check out our latest church website theme. We’ve designed this theme to have a clear focus on new visitors. From “invitation” to “what to expect” visitors will get a feel for what it’s like to attend your church. In this preview we’re sharing just a glimpse of ten Boom, our next responsive church website theme.

A Clear Invitation

One of the first items visitors see is a clear invitation to attend worship. The invitation looks great on both desktop and mobile devices. This theme also helps guide new visitors to the specific information they need. Making it easier and faster for them to locate the information they want.

What to Expect

When visiting a new church it is hard to know what to expect. People are asking themselves “is this a formal service?”, “will I get in trouble if I wear jeans?”, “Are there any activities for my kids?”.

With this section you’re able to share what it will be like when someone steps on campus. You’re also able to connect visitors to information that they need in order to make a decision to attend your church.

Interested in the new theme?

We’re set to release ten Boom before the end of the month (we have high testing standards). If you’d like to learn more about the theme, let us know.

Or, maybe one of our many other church website themes is right for your church.

View all e360 Themes